10 Cost-Cutting Measures – TheAsianParent.com Way

Talking in generics regarding survival in a recession is useless without some numbers to back it up. Seeing exactly how much you saved (NOT) doing this or that provides you with visible encouragement to continue your cost-cutting ways. Here, we have guest contributor, Roshni, founder of Singapore-based TheAsianParent.com, share some of the ways they have cut costs and their corresponding savings.

Written by: Roshni Mahtani, Founder and Editor, www.theasianparent.com

We’re just into March but it’s hard to enjoy the New Year with the devil of the recession staring at us.

Sales orders have slowed down to a trickle, early stage funding has suddenly dried up, costs are skyrocketing and the bills are piling up. Trying to keep a start-up afloat and without retrenching anyone can indeed be maddening, to say the least.

Does the above sound familiar? If so, we empathise with you because well, we’ve been there and done that. We know how hard it can be to keep up with the costs of everything today, even a simple thing such as a water dispenser.

If you’re in the red and struggling to slip into the black, well it’s possible! We’ve done it! Here are some of simple measures we took as we shifted into cost-cutting mode…

The first thing we did was give up our office space and operate out of a home office. We hardly ever had clients come over and our mail was already directed to a virtual address business address, so there was really no point in burning extra money on office space. – Monthly Savings: $1,500

The second thing we did was shift to open-source software. Our online forum is now powered by phpbb, which is free. We use Open Office instead of Microsoft Word for our new laptops, and instead of wasting hours of manpower coming up with new templates for invoices, contracts, etc, we make use of the free templates offered online by companies like Microsoft. – One Time Savings: $4,000. Monthly Savings: $100

We switched to Skype instead of making IDD calls to our clients and staff in Hong Kong , Malaysia and Indonesia . We have also reduced our amount of fixed lines by just keeping two main lines, and having everyone else make calls out using Skype. – Monthly Savings: Between $100 – $150

We have hired interns to help us with our editorial and design load and where possible we outsource design and programming to students. – Monthly Savings: $500

We shuffle around with a 1 to 4 – day work week and spend the rest of the time working from home. This reduces electricity, telephone bills and the staff has a big smile on their face as they cut their commute time in half! We meet regularly on Messenger or Skype and have e-meetings instead. – Monthly Savings: $100

Our freelancers are given assignments in batches which effectively reduces the cost we incur per article. – Monthly Savings: $300

The salary of our sales staff has a greater weighting on commission to provide a greater motivation for our sales team to clinch deals. – Monthly Savings: Between $750 to $1,000 per sales staff.

We have formed a buying alliance with another startup, www.bestof.sg, so as to make use of bulk rates for printing of name cards, domain name purchases, etc. – Monthly Savings: $100 – $150

By switching to refillable ink cartridges and cutting down on printing, we’ve been able to cut cost significantly. We now print only when it’s absolutely necessary. For everything else we just PDF and send it across via email, including our media kits. – Monthly Savings: $200

Instead of spending money on marketing and advertising campaigns, we used Social networking sites like Facebook, Friendster and Twitter to build a pool of loyal readers. We currently have the biggest Asian Parenting group on Facebook, with over 13,000 parents from Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia. – One Time Savings: $2,600

Total Monthly Savings: Between $4,500 – $5,000 a month
Total One Time Savings: $6,600

So don’t sink your head in your hands and stay gloomy. Get a paper out and look for ways to cut-cost around the office and the home too! We’ve done it and it is definitely possible for you too!

Picture courtesy of christine [cbszeto]. (Yes, we know that the picture has *nothing* to do with cost-cutting. But we couldn’t resist, the baby’s just too cute.)

About The Author

Roshni Mahtani is the founder and editor of TheAsianparent.com, a Singapore-based online community that provides free quality content on parenting. They target urban parents and parents-to-be, who live in Asia or are of Asian background. The idea came about when she just a newly-wed trying to prepare for the next stage in her life – motherhood. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find many online resources devoted to Asian Parents. Having been in journalism for many years – she contacted a designer friend and www.theasianparent.com took shape and grew.

She has written over a hundred articles for the following glossies: Motherhood, Juniors, Healthy Pregnancy, Baby and You, Guide to Childcare, GOLF, Teens, Frequent Traveller, Computerworld Singapore, Computerworld Malaysia, CIO Asia, Tech-a-tete and Wedding Sutra. Roshni currently resides in New York.

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